Fine art of penmanship (11/26/2008)

The truck hasn't been in the garage in four years.

It's now a fixture in the driveway. Although some of the things that ousted the pickup are just clutter, the piles of wood and the power tools are the real reason.

A carpenter needs his workshop.

While Gerald Kirby's work is all around his house in the form of customized cabinets, chairs and tables and drawers, his specialty comes in pocket-sized portions as pens.

For about five years, Kirby, Redkey resident and Jay County councilman, has made more than 500 of the wood-barreled ball point and fountain pens, most of which he says he gives away, but some which are sold at local jewelry stores or pen shows.

The hobby started with $50 and a trip to Indianapolis.

"I subscribed to a woodworking magazine," he says. "They've got a store down in Indy and they sent me a flier that they was doing a school for pen-making, $50, and I thought 'That sounds real neat. I'm going to try that.'

"So I went down and took the little class, still got the pen I made," he says. "Before I left there I spent damn near $3,000."

The $50 class has turned into a streamlined hobby. His wooden blanks look like a box of crayons, sporting various woods in all shades of colors and grains. Some common woods, like cherry or oak, are mixed with more exotic pieces like Gabon ebony or olivewood from Bethlehem. Zebrawood, yellowheart, Brazilian mahogany and even treated corncobs are just some of the materials at his disposal.

A drawer is filled with different shaving tools for the lathe. A plastic storage container is packed with metal pen components, clips, caps and other accents to make each project a little bit different from the last.

Kirby takes pride in the work, putting several hours into the process to produce the pens, which sell for about $20 or $25 on average, although more exotic pieces like an ebony fountain pen can sell for $100 or $150.

"Everybody in the world makes these things or tries to," he says. "What I like to say is that the difference between mine and what they make is I'll give you quality. Some of them (made by others) look like they was carved out with a hatchet."

The quality shows.

"It's a nice pen, a very nice pen actually," said Bill Bradley, Jay County Development Corporation director and owner of one of Kirby's pens. "Gerald gave it to me as a gift at one point."

Kirby's work was nice enough that JCDC in turn gifted some of Kirby's pens to several Japanese executives when they were in Portland.

"For the FCC 25th anniversary, that was one of the gifts we gave," Bradley said. "That was what we gave from JCDC. They were very appreciative of the gift since it was something very much handmade and crafted here. They really liked that."

Kirby starts with an unassuming piece of wood, about 1 inch by 1 inch by 6 inches, which he splits to make the upper and lower barrels for the pen. A hole is drilled in the halves to accommodate the metal innards of the pen.

Kirby glues the metal tubing into holes and then sets up the lathe. With a deft handle on his files, Kirby shaves the canarywood shaft for this particular pen down to size. He makes it look easy, but really it's years of experience showing.

At one point the lathe-work took "probably a half an hour or 45 minutes," he says. "You learn after a while how much pressure you can use."

Then the quality assurance kicks in as he begins to sand and finish the barrels.

"This little operation right here is the difference between a good pen and a piece of crap," he says as works some sandpaper across the barrels, stopping for short intervals. That's a trick that's been learned the hard way over the years.

"It's not uncommon for them to fly apart when I'm sanding it," he says. "They overheat, it heats up and you've got it trapped in between the ends and it's got nowhere to go."

His workbench has a couple pen carcasses that chipped or split in half on the lathe or before, including a pricy piece of ebony that shattered on the drill. Now, he guesses, only one in 10 die before completion.

"Unfortunately it's the wood blowing up on me," he says. "They just fly apart on you. I've actually had it blow up while I was finishing it, just a little chip flew out of it."

As he takes the wooden pieces from the lathe, now sanded and finished, he works a small hand press to jam pen mechanisms into the tubing, another risky part of the job.

"I have screwed up many pens on this little maneuver. Where you screw up is the length, it's got to be just right, that's what determines how much of your ball is sticking out and that's pretty much trial and error," he says as he checks the length after every push.

From there he moves to the plastic container, looking for the right accent piece for where the two wooden pieces connect, the perfect clip and a cap to top it off. The spare parts in the container are from past screwups. For this pen, he adds a clip with a small American flag emblem and caps it off, giving the pen a twist to check the ballpoint.

With a nod at the work - this pen went from start to finish in about 45 minutes - he's done.

"I enjoy it out here, I really do," he says. "It's fun, relaxing, keeps me out of (my wife) Sandy's hair."

And, in the end, he hopes he creates something worth people hanging onto in a world of disposable and losable pens.

"We're accustomed to getting pens given to us by every salesman that walks through the door and every politician that walks down the street and you just get careless with your pens," he says. "That's the worst part about a good quality pen."[[In-content Ad]]